September 19, 1797: Bonaparte to Talleyrand About Sieyès

Abstract

Shortly after the coup d’état of 18 Fructidor, An V (September 4, 1797), to which Napoleon, from Italy, had contributed military aid, and which revealed more starkly than ever the ruin facing France’s effort to establish representative political institutions, Napoleon wrote the following letter to Talleyrand. Napoleon had already met Sieyès and was aware of some of his ideas, as was Mme. de Staël, who had conversed with them at a dinner party and whose political reflections on the problems facing France will be given in the final document. The source of Napoleon’s letter is Correspondance de Napoléon f^erpubliée par ordre de l’Empereur Napoléon III, Vol. III (Paris, 1859), pp.417–420.